Medical studies in Austria: children of academics and doctors are overrepresented

A survey published in 2017 of first-year students at the three public medical universities (Vienna, Graz and Innsbruck) had established that 20% of them had a father who was a doctor and 6% a mother who was a doctor. In total, 45% of those surveyed said they had doctors in their family, confirming the hypothesis that success chances are particularly high for candidates from medical families.

This social selectivity was reinforced by the introduction of admissions procedures in the early 2000s, followed by their generalisation in 2006. According to a 2020 IHS evaluation, these procedures made access to medical studies even more difficult for candidates without an academic background.

Social filtering amplified since 2006

As an example, at the Medical University of Vienna in 2019/20, 40% of those registered for the test came from a non-academic household, but only 31% of those actually enrolled as students — an "attrition rate" referred to as Schwund in the German data. At the medical universities of Graz and Innsbruck as well as at the medical faculty in Linz, this attrition was "teilweise etwas geringer, aber ebenfalls vorhanden" — partly somewhat lower, but still present.

The Austrian federal government had set itself the objective that by 2025 at least half of students beginning human or dental medicine should come from a non-academic background, the reference text recalls. At the Medical University of Vienna, this 50% target has only just been met over the past two years, according to an analysis carried out for the APA.

The MedAT test itself is highly selective: in the 2018/19 edition, only four in ten candidates secured a place in their first attempt. According to the figures cited, around 40% of candidates not admitted on their first try obtained a place on their second attempt.

The MedAT, a highly selective examination

In 2025, at the Medical University of Vienna, only half of test participants were "novices" — 30% were taking the test for the second time and 11% for the third. One third of places went to candidates from the 2024 school-leaving cohort, and 28% to the 2023 cohort.

Fresh secondary school graduates are particularly disadvantaged: only 7% of the 2025 school-leaving cohort obtained an immediate place at the Medical University of Vienna the previous year.

Among candidates who do not secure a place in medicine, many temporarily fall back on the natural sciences, where the chances of crediting coursework already completed are particularly good. According to the IHS evaluation study, around a quarter of rejected candidates permanently choose the natural sciences and another quarter law, a field often chosen for its professional prestige.

More accessible studies for those who pass the barrier

Another evaluation, conducted in 2023/24 by the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE), shows that the share of students whose father does not hold a university degree has fallen to just under 43%, compared with 47% five years earlier: a decline that moves the field further away from the stated objective of social openness.

Paradoxically, the quality of the academic journey has improved for the minority of students not from academic families who nonetheless cross the barrier: since the introduction of admissions procedures, more than eight in ten students from non-academic households have obtained their degree, according to the same sources.

The landscape therefore remains marked by a double social filter, at entry and at the end of studies, despite repeated commitments by the authorities to diversify the profile of future doctors.